Universities, Army Research Lab join forces on cybersecurity effort

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University and Army Research Laboratory will join forces with those from a handful of universities in an effort to better automate cybersecurity decisions. The five-year project has attracted $23.2 million in funding from the Army Research Lab, and could be extended to $48.2 million over 10 years.

The research alliance, whose focus is on enabling computer systems to take actions in response to attacks without human intervention, also includes Penn State University, the University of California, Davis, the University of California, Riverside, and Indiana University. The researchers will strive to boost automation in large part by developing models of human behaviors related to end users, defenders and attacks.

CMU lead investigator Lorrie Cranor, director of the CyLab Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory, said in a statement that CMU researchers will focus especially on psychosocial activities. “One of the salient aspects of our proposed research is in the realization that humans are integral to maintaining cybersecurity and to breaches of security. Their behavior and cognitive and psychological biases have to be integrated as much as any other component of the system that one is trying to secure.”

Bob Brown is a news editor for Network World, blogs about network research, and works most closely with our staff's wireless/mobile reporters. Follow him on Twitter at Alphadoggs and connect via email at bbrown@nww.com